Iron Man 3: Good But Not Great

I went to see Iron Man 3 over the weekend. Twice. With Iron Man 3 opening on May 3rd, Star Wars day on May 4th, and Cinco de Mayo on, well, May 5th, I decided to make a four-day weekend out of it and took vacation days on May 3rd and May 6th. Monday was for, you know, recovering. And who likes Mondays anyway.

My old comic book movie posse reunited for a Friday evening showing of Iron Man 3 and we were not disappointed. Well, I was initially bummed about Ben Kingsley's Mandarin, but then I remembered my previous rant and decided that the twist was worth it. Hell, I was about as surprised as Rhodey was in the movie.

It's pretty rare that movies surprise me anymore. So the surprise sort of endeared me to the movie and the character. Of course, I'm tip-toeing around a spoiler here. And I had no idea it was coming; which is also a rarity given that what I read on the Internet has the potential to spoil just about any surprise. So I have to hand it to the Iron Man 3 secret service, because they kept this twist well under wraps.

So Iron Man 3 was good. I'm not sure how many thumbs or stars or tomatoes I would give it. But it's good. It's not as good as the first Iron Man movie, but it's better than the second one. It won't break into the ranks of my top three Marvel movies. The Avengers, Iron Man, and X2: X-Men United (although, I still hate that title) are all safe in their respective spots.

I also took my nephew to go see it (after I saw it with my friends) and he enjoyed it. With a PG-13 rating, it's probably not a great movie to show a seven-year-old. I'm the crazy uncle. I can get away with stuff like that.

The cause and effect or choice and consequence story-line was brilliant. Tony Stark was/is a little prick and he did things to make many enemies. The things we do can come back to bite us in the ass. Tony is stuck dealing with these things from his past as well as the revelation that occurred to him in The Avengers: he's just a guy in a suit.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to delight: I'm looking forward to what's coming next. Especially the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Marvel Movies: No Angry Comic Nerd Here

Recently, a friend asked me this amazing question: "When it comes to Marvel comics converted to movies, are you usually satisfied with it, unhappy with it, or both?"

Sit back and let me show you a whole new world (and why I'm totally fine with Marvel movies not being true to their comic book counter parts).

The Short version: Marvel's characters are always being re-created and re-imagined; their stories are constantly being retold.

The Long version:

Every single character and story created within Marvel Comics exists in the Marvel Universe (think Multiverse).

The Marvel Universe consists of parallel dimensions (I'm using 'dimensions' in place of universes because it makes more sense to me). In each dimension there is a Spider-Man, an Ironman, a Deadpool, and a DoNothingMan. Each dimension has it's own little twists. This allows for the Marvel writers and artists to infinitely create (or kill) and re-imagine characters.

You want a black Spider-Man? Then you want Miles Morales of Earth-1610 (Ultimate Marvel) a dimension where Peter Parker was killed. But don't worry, Peter Parker is still alive and well in Earth-616 (and many others).

A beautiful example of these dimensions is Deadpool Corps.

The Earth-616 Deadpool travels across the parallel dimensions to recruit a team of alternate versions of himself. He selects Lady Deadpool (Earth-3010), Kidpool (Earth-10330), Dogpool (Earth-103173), and Headpool (Earth-2149). After the team is put together, hilarity ensues.

At the bottom of the list are the movies.

Earth-199999 appears to contain Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Avengers. Notice that The Hulk (movie) is not listed. That movie was so bad that Marvel kicked it out of the entire Marvel Universe. LOLz. Also notice the Guardians of the Galaxy in the announced section. This is the craziest team of super heroes ever. Even crazier than the Deadpool Corps.

So basically, Marvel created a storytelling ecosystem with infinite possibilities. It's how writers/directors/artists twist the characters and place them in new and different situations that makes the changes so interesting.

Taken 2

So, during my half-hour lunch break, I discovered that "they"
(the infamous they of Hollywood, money-hungry retards) are making a sequel to Taken.

I found this tweet about it. Needless to say, I re-tweeted right away.



Sometimes, micro-blogging is the answer. Thank you, SoVeryAwkward.

WTF? Really Spider-man? Really?

So I get weird emails from Sony Pictures in my spammy yahoo account. This was in that mailbox this morning. I was excited, then horrified, then repulsed, then just sad.